Posted
by
Cliff
on Thursday June 23, 2005 @05:05PM
from the limericks-and-jests-and-jokes-oh-my dept.

super_ogg writes "To break some of the office blues, I decided to tell the worst geek joke I know: 'Why did the Comp. Engineer get X-mas and Halloween mixed up? A: Because Oct(31) == Dec(25)!' Some groaned, some laughed, but only a geek could understand it. I was wondering what are some of the best/worst geek jokes people have out there for the Slashdot community?"

Here's the best one I know. It's a bit long...but I have faith in you.

A doctor, a lawyer,and an engineer are sentenced to death. Why is not important to the story...what's important is that the death sentence will be carried out in France - via guillotine.

The doctor is first. The executioner straps him down, hoists the glittering blade aloft, and lets it drop...whereupon it sticks about halfway down.

Now, it's a well-known tradition in capital punishment that if the execution apparatus fails for any reason, this is interpreted as a sign from God, and the death sentence is commuted. Accordingly, the doctor walks away, still very much alive.

The lawyer is next. The executioner straps him down, hoists the glittering blade aloft, and lets it drop...whereupon it sticks in the exact same spot.Same rules apply...lawyer walks.

The engineer is last. The executioner straps him down, as he hoists the blade aloft, the engineer twists his neck around, peers up at the blade, and says:

A computer scientist, a surgeon, and a civil engineer were gathered at the pub. The surgeon boasts, Surgery is the oldest technology in the world. It's in the Bible. God removed Adam's rib while he slept. This is clear evidence that surgery pre-dates all other technological endevors.

Without so much as a beat, the civil engineer says that before that, God formed the Earth, the stars, and everything from nothing but chaos. He created rivers, mountians and oceans. This was clear evidence that civil eng

An engineer is walking down the street, and sees another guy from his lab walking along with a new bright red motorcycle. He's impressed, especially since his friend doesn't know how to ride a motorcycle, so he goes up and asks, "Wow, where'd you get that?"

His friend explains, "Well, I walk walking along, and this gorgeous blond drives up on the motorcycle, stops in front of me, strips her clothes off and tells me, 'Take what you want!'"

omgsean123: so anyway, heisenberg is speeding down the street and he gets pulled over by a cop
omgsean123: and the cop is like "do you know how fast you were going?"
omgsean123: and he says "no, but i know exactly where i am!"

A Mathematician, a Biologist and a Physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house.
The Physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate.".
The Biologist: "They have reproduced".
The Mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again."

A Houston construction boss was interviewing men for a job, when along came a Louisiana Cajun. "You gotta pass my test first", he told the applicant."Here's your first question."

"Without using numbers represent the number 9.""Without numbers?" the Cajun says. "Dat's easy," and proceeds to draw 3 trees."What's this?" the foreman asks."Well, tree and tree and tree make nine," says the Cajun."Fair enough," replies the foreman. "Here is your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99."The Cajun stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture of the three trees and makes a smudge on each tree. "Ere you go."The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99?" !;"Each of da trees is dirty now! So dirty tree and dirty tree and dirty tree. Dat is 99!"
"All right. Last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100."The Cajun stares into space again, then picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree, and says, "Ere you go. One hundred!"The foreman looks at the attempt. "How in the world does this represent a hundred?"The Cajun leans forward and points to the marks at the tree bases, and says,"A little dog come along and crap by each tree, so now you've got dirty tree and a turd and dirty tree and a turd and dirty tree and turd, and dat make one 'undred.

A helicopter with a pilot and a single passenger was flying around above Seattle when a malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's navigation and communications equipment. Due to the darkness and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position and course to get back to the airport.

The pilot saw a tall building with lights on and flew toward it, the pilot had the passenger draw a handwritten sign reading "WHERE AM I?" and hold it up for the building's occupants to see.

People in the building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER."

The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely.

After they were on the ground, the passenger asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position.

The pilot responded "I knew that had to be the Microsoft support building, they gave me a technically correct but entirely useless answer."

The passenger continued, "You must have been in marketing before you became a pilot."

"Yes, I was, how did you know?" the pilot replied.

"Because you didn't know where you were or what you were doing, but expected the computer tech to be able to help you. After he answered your question, you were in the same situation as before, but then you decided it was his fault."

A computer programmer was driving his Porsche down the road. He
stops for a stop sign and notices a frog in the middle of the road.
The frog says to the programmer 'Hey you in the car. I'm not really
a frog. I used to be a beautiful princess. If you kiss me, I will
turn back into a princess and in return I will give you the best night
of sex you've ever had.' The computer programmer mumbles, 'sure, yeah.'
He picks up the frog and then continues down the road. The frog then
says, 'OK look. If you kiss me, I'll give you a whole week of
incredible sex.' The programmer mumbles, 'sure, yeah.' The frog
says more forcably this time, 'Look maybe you don't understand. I'm
tired of being a frog. If you kiss me I'll give you the best sex you've
ever had for the rest of your entire life.' Once again the programmer
mumbles 'sure, yeah.' Finally the frog says, 'Well can you at least tell
me why you won't kiss me?' The computer programmer says 'Well you see
I'm a computer programmer and don't have much time for sex. But a talking
frog is really neat.'

Two computer programmers were having a conversation at lunch and one begins telling the other a story, "Yesterday, as I was walking home through the park, a beautiful woman rode up to me on a bicycle, got off, took off all of her clothes and told me she wanted to give me whatever I wanted!"

"Wow...that's great! What did you do?", asks his friend.

"Well, I took the bicycle. I ended up getting home quite a bit earlier than usual."

t0rbad> so there i was in this hallway rightBlackAdder> i believe i speak for all of us when i say...BlackAdder> WRONG BTICHBlackAdder> IM SICK OF YOUBlackAdder> AND YOUR LAME STORIESBlackAdder> NOBODY HERE THINKS YOURE FUNNYBlackAdder> NOBODY HERE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR STORIESBlackAdder> IN FACTBlackAdder> IF YOU DIED RIGHT NOWBlackAdder> I DON"T THINK NOBODY WOULD CAREBlackAdder> SO WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT FAG*** t0rbad sets mode: +b BlackAdder*!*@*.**** BlackAdder has been kicked my t0rbad ( )t0rbad> so there i was in this hallway rightCRCError> rightheartless> Right.r3v> right

For this one, you should be person B... a basic knowledge of vector operations is required.

A: "What's up?"B: "Right Cross Forward."

For a longer joke, I like to go back to my old Applied Math days...

An airplane leaves Warsaw for London. Some crippling illness (take your pick) renders the pilot and co-pilot inoperative. The stewardess goes out among the passengers looking for anyone with flying experience to help make an emergency landing and finds two cropduster pilots.They get up to the cockpit and get on the radio with the landing tower, who is going to help talk them down. As the instructions start coming in, however, they end up helplessly gazing across the vast expanse of lights, switches and controls in a modern passenger airplane, infinitely more complicated than their old cropduster. "I don't think we can handle this." one of says. "Why not?" asks the radio tower. "Well, you see, we're just two simple Poles in a complex plane."

I was taking a Peter Pan bus from Baltimore down South, and we were watching an in-bus movie (Yay Peter Pan!), when all of a sudden... The bus driver turned off the movie, pulled over to the side of the interstate, and announced over the PA that he had to reboot the bus. He then turned off the engine, and we sat there for 2 minutes. After that, he turned it back on, restarted the movie, and we were on our way.

The curtain opens on a group of pirates sitting at their computers, surfing the Web and downloading illegal copies of copyrighted works. One of them, FREDRICK, tells the others that he will no longer take part of such piratical activity. The PIRATE KING, shocked by the news, bursts into song.

I remember watching Channel 1 back in high school. For those who don't know what Channel 1 is, it's a news station for schools around the USA. Just before a commercial break, they'd ask a question and pop up the answer when it returned.

One day, they asked: "Q. What is the most common cause of plane crashes?"

Without thinking, I excited blurted out "Gravity!" Turns out, the answer was "Human Error". I learned a lesson about that on the way to the principal's office.

So a software engineer, a hardware engineer and their manager are in the car going to an expo in their rental car. To get there they must navigate a treacherous mountain road. While they are coming down a steep and narrow incline the car's brakes go out. The car starts going way too fast and they all fear this will be the end of their lives. But somehow the driver manages to not careen off the road and the manage glide to a stop once safely down the hill.

They all get out and catch their breath for a minute.

The manager is first to speak, "Well, let me get my cell phone so I can call the tow truck to take it to the garage."

The hardware engineer says, "No, no, no, just pop the hood and we can fix the problem ourselves."

The software engineer says, "Guys, just wait. Before we do anything we should take it up the hill and see if it happens again!"

A physicist, a mathematician, and an engineer are staying in a hotel. Outside their rooms, a fire erupts.

The physicist steps outside to see the fire along with a bucket and water spigot. He simply fills the bucket with water and pours it on the flames until they go out then returns to bed.

The engineer steps outside to see the fire along with the bucket and water spigot. He meticulously calculates the amount of water needed and the rate of flow to most efficiently and effectively put out the fire. After a few minutes and a couple tests, the fire is extinguished.

The mathematician steps outside and sees the fire. He also notices the bucket and water spigot and exclaims "Their exists a solution" and returns to bed.

Ich: I have passed the transitional stage of internet geekhood
Ich: I was cashiering at work today, and was punching in the code for plums, which is 4040.
Ich: and the 0 key doesn't work this well, so I punched it in wrong.
Ich: and the machine flashed up "Item Not Found: 404"
Ich: and I actually laughed out loud

WallJam7: roses are red
WallJam7: violets are blue
WallJam7: all of my base
WallJam7: are belong to you

Firefly: Time for my prayers:
Firefly: Our Father, who 0wnz heaven, j00 r0ck!
Firefly: May all 0ur base someday be belong to you!
Firefly: May j00 0wn earth just like j00 0wn heaven.
Firefly: Give us this day our warez, mp3z, and pr0n through a phat pipe.
Firefly: And cut us some slack when we act like n00b lamerz, just as we teach n00bz when they act lame on us.
Firefly: Please don't give us root access on some poor d00d'z box when we're too pissed off to think about what's right and wrong, and if you could keep the fbi off our backs, we'd appreciate it.
Firefly: For j00 0wn r00t on all our b0x3s 4ever and ever, 4m3n.

$_='A doctor, a lawyer, and a mathematician were having a conversation about the relative benefits of wives and mistresses.

The doctor insisted that, from a health perspective, it was far better to have a wife. He talked about stress, relaxation, routine, and other factors.

The lawyer contended that it was better to have a mistress, because that way you retain more of your legal rights, she doesn't own half your property, and so forth.

The mathematician said that he could see both sides of that argument, but really he thought it was best to have both.

"Both?", the doctor and the lawyer exclaimed. "Why?"

"Sure, both. That way, when the wife thinks you're with the mistress, and the mistress thinks you're with the wife, you can sneak off by yourself and do mathematics."'; print; s/mathematician/computer geek/; s/mathematics/programming/; print;

One night, there're sin, tan and cos together around a campfire, while e^x is all by himself. When someone asks him why he isn't wit the other, e^x says: "I tried to integrate myself, but nothing ever happens."

.... are lost in the desert. They've been wandering for days, are horribly sunburned and are out of water.

All of a sudden, they stumble upon Archemides with a canteen full of water! Archemides says "One of you can have this canteen and you'll live, but only if you walk half way to it, stop, walk half way to it, etc., etc.

The mathematic, in anquish, lays his head in his arm and start to cry. "It can't be done" he rages.

The engineer looks at the mathematician in disgust, shrugs his shoulders, walks half way, stops, walks half way, stop, etc., etc. Finally he stops next to it, leans over, picks up the canteen and drinks.

Archemides and the mathematician both are in shock. Archemides exclaims "but how did you do that -- it's impossible!"

A newly appointed cryptographer attends a lunch meeting with his peers, who are going around a circle telling jokes. One of the cryptographers shouts "12", and everyone starts laughing. Another person shouts "34", which is received with more laughter. The new cryptographer asks one of the people "why is everyone laughing?" to which he responds "instead of taking the time to tell the whole joke, we just assign each joke a number and instead say that number". When it's the new cryptographers turn, he says "-22", to which everyone bursts in laughter. One of them shouts, "i haven't heard that one before!"

The string leaves, waits a few minutes, then slips back inside and takes a seat in a booth out of sight from the bartender. He twists his body around in a strange contortion, then begins to unravel a little.

I read this one in the guardian a few years ago, I've also heard it more recently, about mathematicians and physicists.
Anyway...
A group of 4 MS programmers and a group of 4 Apple programmers are going on a train to an expo. The MS programmers buy a ticket each, and then watch the Apple programmers proceed to buy one ticket between them.
The MS programmers are intrigued and when they get on the train, they watch the Apple programmers to see what they do when the guard comes to check the tickets. It turns out that, before the guard comes, they all cram into the toilet. The guard knocks on the door, and asks for the ticket. The guard takes it from under the door, and slides it back.
The MS programmers are all impressed, so on the way back, they buy only one ticket. Only to watch the Apple folks get on the train without buying a ticket at all.
When they get on the train, the MS people cram into the toilet, as they saw the Apple folks on the earlier journey. The Apple programmers then knock on the door, and say "Ticket please". The MS programmers slide the ticket under the door, as they saw the Apple programmers do earlier.
"Thank you", they say. "You steal our methods, but you don't understand them."

My first real job was a lousy tech support job at the local computer store. I had a customer that swore up and down I was the reason her new computer didn't work and wanted to store to build her a completely new machine at no cost. Reloading the software on her machine wasn't good enough, she wanted a newer one.

Since I wouldn't jump right up and do this, she went to the store manager and yelled at him for about an hour. After which I got called into the office so he could chew me out. He got a good start at it, and after about 10 minutes, he asked me why I did what I did.

My reply was "There is a difference between bending over backwards for the customer and bending over forwards."

The manager turned bright red, pointed at the door, and as soon as I made it out of the office he laughed for about 20 minutes. And I never heard another word about the incident.

One day, and engineer comes up to the gates of hell. The Devil takes a look at him and says, "Well, we've never had an engineer in hell before, but I guess we can take you in." So the engineer goes in.

After a few days, he comes up to the Devil and says, "I'm sure you've noticed, but it's really hot down here! What do you think of setting up a couple of refrigeration coils, getting an icebox set up so we could have iced drinks down here?" Now, the Devil hears this and says, "Why not? If you can set it up, go for it!"

So the engineer gets some tools together, works for a little bit, and sets up his little icecube maker, and soon the engineer, the Devil, and everyone else is enjoying ice cubes in their drinks, and everyone thinks it's a great improvement.

Couple of days later, the engineer comes back to the Devil and says, "Well, I'm impressed by how big Hell is - there are so many people here! But it takes so long to get from place to place - how about I install some people-movers? I can put in escalaters, elevators, moving ramps, the works!" The Devil takes a sip of his ice marguarita, and says, "Sure, give it a shot."

As the engineer works, the souls in Hell start getting around easier - there are elevators, escalators, all sorts of people-movers! It gets to be quite convenient to get around Hell.

After that project, the engineer comes up to the Devil and says, "I've been thinking about tackling the heat down here - ice drinks are all well and good, but it's still bloody hot! How about it?" The Devil at this point returns, "Anything you need, you got it!"

Two weeks later, the first stage of the cooling system goes on-line, and all the damned souls breath a sigh of relief as the heat wave finally breaks. At this point, God comes down to talk to the Devil, and tells him there's been a mistake: "That engineer you've got doesn't belong in Hell - he was meant for Heaven!"

Now, the Devil wasn't about to let his first engineer go! He returns, "Oh, come on - once he's in those gates, he's Mine! That's the way it works, and you know it!"

Two mathematicians are in a bar. One argues that commoners know nothing of mathematics these days. The other disagrees, whereupon the first challenges him to find someone in the bar who can answer a simple calculus question. The second agrees then excuses himself to go to the toilet. On his way there, he orders some more drinks from a pretty blonde waitress, and tells her there's a handsome tip in it if she'll do him a quick favour

"Look, when you deliver the drink I'm going to ask you a question and I'd like you to answer 'one third x cubed'"

"... one thirdux cube? huh?"

"Yeah sure, that'll do"

So anyway, the mathematician returns to his friend, the drink is delivered and he asks the waitress "Now my dear, do you know what the integral of x squared dx is?"

She gives him a funny look and says "Uh, one third x cubed", then begins to walk off.

"Thank you". He then turns to his companion and says "See, told you!". At which point the waitress turns around and adds "Oh, plus a constant of integration".

There was an old Indian belief that by making love on the hide oftheir favorite animal, one could guarantee the health and prosperityof the offspring conceived thereupon. And so it goes that one Indiancouple made love on a buffalo hide. Nine months later, they wereblessed with a healthy baby son. Yet another couple huddled togetheron the hide of a deer and they too were blessed with a very healthybaby son. But a third couple, whose favorite animal was a hippopotamus,were blessed with not one, but TWO very healthy baby sons at the conclusionof the nine month interval. All of which proves the old theorem that:The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons ofthe squaws of the other two hides.

A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly
a brand-new BMW advanced out of the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a
young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie,
leaned out the window and asked the shepherd...
"If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will
you give me one?"
The shepherd looked at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looked at
his peacefully-grazing flock and calmly answered, "Sure."
The yuppie parked his car, whipped out his IBM Thinkpad and
connected it to a cell phone, then he surfed to a NASA page on the internet
where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system, scanned the area, and
then opened up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas.
He sent an email on his Blackberry and, after a
few minutes, received a response. Finally, he prints out a 130 page report
on his miniaturized printer then turns to the shepherd and says.......
"You have exactly 1586 sheep."
"That is correct; take one of the sheep." said the shepherd. He
watches the young man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car.
Then the shepherd says: "If I can tell you exactly what your
business is, will you give me back my animal?"
"OK, why not." answered the young man.
"Clearly, you are a consultant." said the shepherd.
"That's correct." says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required." answers the shepherd. "You turned up here
although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already
knew, to a question I never asked, and you don't know crap about my
business.... Now give me back my dog."

Two engineering students crossing the campus when one said, "Where did you
get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking
along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and
said, "Take what you want." The first engineer nodded approvingly, "Good
choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Understanding Engineers - Take Two

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers - Take Three

A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a
particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these
guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I
don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The pastor said, "Hey,
here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him." "Hi George! Say,
what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The
greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Four

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers - Take Five

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate
with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an
Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with an Arts
degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Six

"Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Engineers believe that "if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet"

Understanding Engineers - Take Seven

An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said, "I like both." "Both?" "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done."

Understanding Engineers - Take Eight

An engineer was crossing a road one-day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over,
picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and
said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one year." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want." Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for a year and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."

Incidently, the toilet paper holders in Engineering at Adelaide Uni are all enscribed, "Pull here for an Arts Degree - Wipe for honours."

A Mathematician, Physicist, and Engineer are asked to find the volume of a Red Rubber Ball. The mathematician carefully solves the triple integral. The Physicist puts the ball in water and measures the displacement. The engineer finds the serial number of the ball and looks up the volume in his red rubber ball table.

A quantum physicist , a Developer and a systems admin were all discussing the existence of god

So the Physicist says: Right now God is a concept that is both real and unreal untill we can prove it one way or the other

The Developer says : Yes but owning to the parallels between creation of intelligent programs and the need for us to invent it , it only follows that a similar concept must of been in place to create us

I had a coworker who would put little animations of erecting and ejaculating penises in many of our apps. You'd click on a menu for the fifth time within a 20 minute span, and up popped the animation. Yep, you guessed it. The penis would become hard, and then it would squirt the sperm!

One time he forgot to take out the animation from some software we had to present to librarians during a librarian's conference. Indeed, nothing was as funny as seeing hundreds of librarians cringe at the sight of such infantile humor.

A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning at the third tee (par 3, 185 yards, slight dog leg to left, water hazard on the right) while a particularly slow group of golfers were flailing away ahead of them.

Engineer: What's with these guys? We've been waiting for 15 minutes!

Doctor: I don't know but I've never seen such ineptitude!

Priest: Hey, here comes the green keeper. Let's have a word with him. Hi George. Say George, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?

George: Oh yes. That's a group of blind fire fighters. They lost their sight while saving our club house last year. So we let them play here anytime free of charge!

Doctor: Wow! Thanks for the scoop George.

Priest: That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.

Doctor: Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them.

Four geeks are walking on a beach......a med student, a physicist, a mathematician and a mechanical engineer.

They are enjoying their day out when they see a crowd of people crouching around a woman who is lying motionless on the sand. Their geek-curiosity is instantly aroused, and they jog over to investigate.

"What's up?", the med student asks.

"She got caught in the undertow, looks like she's drowned good", one of the crowd answers.

"I think I see a pulse in her temple!" cries the med student, "Quickly, men! Determined action may save her yet!"

The physicist takes off his backpack and from it produces his trusty supersoaker. It is the work of a few seconds to fashion it into an effective water pump.

"With this we can empty her lungs of water in no time!", cried the physicist.

The team set to work, and apply the device to her mouth, with the med student and physicist pumping away.

Once upon a time pretty little Polly Nomial was strolling across a field of vectors when she came to the edge of a singularly large matrix.

Now Polly was convergent and her mother had made it an absolute condition that she must never enter such an array without her brackets on. Poll however, who had changed her variables that morning and was feeling particularly badly behaved, ignored these conditions on the ground that they were unnecessary, and made her way amongst the complex elements.

Rows and columns enveloped her on both sides. Tangents approached her surface; she became tensor and tensor. Quite suddenly two branches of a hyperbola touched her at a single point. She oscillated violently, lost all sense of directrix and went completely divergent. As she reached a turning point she tripped over a square root which was protruding from the erf and plunged headlong down a steep gradient. When she was differentiated once more she found herself alone, apparently in a non-Euclidian space.

She was being watched however. That smooth operator, Curly Pi, was lurking inner product. As his eyes devoured her curvilinear co-ordinates, a singular expression crossed his face. Was she still convergent, he wondered. He decided to integrate at once.

Hearing a vulgar fraction behind her, Polly turned round and saw Curly Pi approaching with his power series extrapolated. She could see at once by his degenerate conic and his dissipative terms that he was bent on no good.

"Eureka" she gasped.

"Ho Ho" he said, "what a symmetric little polynomial you are. I can see you're absolutely bubbling over with secs."

"Come, come," said Curly, "lets off to a decimal place I know and I'll take you to the limit".

"Never" gasped Polly.

"EXCHLF" he swore, using the vilest oath he knew. His patience was gone. Coshing her over the coefficient with a log until she was powerless, Curly removed her discontinuities. He started at her significant places and began smoothing her points of inflection. Poor Polly, all was up. She felt his digit tending to her asymptotic limit. Her convergence was gone for ever.

There was no mercy, for Curly was a Heavyside operator. He integrated by partial fractions. The complex beast even went all the way round and did a contour integration. What an indignity. To be multiply connected at her first integration. Curly went on operating until he was absolutely and completely orthogonal.

When Polly got home that evening her mother noticed that she was truncated in several places. But it was too late to differentiate now. As the months went by, Polly increased monotonically. Finally, she generated a small but pathological function which left surds all over the place until she was driven to distraction.

The moral of the story is this: If you want to keep your expressions convergent, never allow them a single degree of freedom.

...he was famous for being able to carry out prodigious calculations in his head. Two colleagues make a bet about how he'll solve a particular problem. There's a hard way and an easy way to solve it.

"So, Werner, two trains are heading toward each other. One is travelling at 60 kilometers per hour, and the other at 40 kph. A bird starts at one train, flies to the other at 120kph, and as soon as it reaches the other train it instantly reverses course back to the original train. It continues to do this until the trains meet. If the trains start out 100 kilometers apart, what is the total distance covered by the bird?"